In Search of Ancient Ireland

In Search of Ancient Ireland by Carmel McCaffrey and Leo
Eaton. This book traces the history, archaeology, and legends of
ancient Ireland from 9000 BC to 1167 AD when a Normans invaded
Ireland.

Written as a companion book to the television
series of the same name, it is very readable. The authors
actually visited the sites covered in the book accompanied by
archaeologists and experts from the various periods.

In Search of Ancient Ireland is about Ireland before the twelfth century
A.D. when an Anglo-Norman invasion first attempted to bring the island
under the rule of the English monarchy and it is about how this ancient
past continues to affect how Ireland sees itself today.

As many as fifty million Americans now claim direct Irish descent, with
almost as many more Irish "descendants" scattered elsewhere
around the world. Irish pubs are crowded with Irish and would-be Irish in
Russia, Australia, Japan, even in the Congo. St. Patrick's Day has become a
worldwide celebration while Celtic music, art, spirituality and mythology
are growth industries of the late twentieth and early twenty-first
centuries. Epic fantasies like J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings draw
their inspiration directly from Celtic Irish sources; indeed the words
"Celtic" and "Irish" have become so interwoven that
most people today assume they are one and the same.

All this has meant that interest in Ireland and her ancient history has
flourished in recent years, even if what many people believe to be true
comes more from the imagination of poets and storytellers than the rigorous
scholarship of historians and archaeologists.

Carmel McCaffrey and Leo Eaton wrote In Search of Ancient Ireland,
and the television series that accompanies it (produced for
PBS and
RTE) because Irish prehistory is
undergoing massive re-evaluation in light of recent discoveries. Ireland
has yielded up more of her secrets in the past few years than she has in
the past century. Research for the book and series took place together, as
much out in the field as in the archives. It is not essential to "walk
the ground" in order to write history, but when one has an opportunity
to do so, the past comes alive in a completely different way.

To stand on the summit of the remote monastery island of Skellig Michael
and see the Atlantic waves crashing against its sheer mountain cliffs is to
understand in a visceral way how seventh century monks created a different
kind of Christianity, seeking isolated hermitages in the middle of the
ocean that took them as far afield as Iceland and perhaps all the way to
America. To venture deep in the heart of a 5000 year old passage tomb is to
marvel at the ingenuity, organization, and architectural skill of Irish
Neolithic farmers who raised such ancestral temples a thousand years before
the first pyramids were built in Egypt.

To explain the history of Ireland, we chose also to give a sense of
"place," for in Ireland, history and landscape are inseparable.
Every mountain and valley has its story, just as every major event over the
past five thousand years is anchored in a particular place. The authors
visited monasteries and ring forts, climbed mountains and delved deep into
sacred caves, and we were accompanied on this journey through the
historical landscape by many of Ireland's best known scholars, historians,
and archaeologists. For months on end the authors tramped the ancient sites
with historian Donnchadh Ó Cornáin and archaeologists Pat Wallace, Barry
Raftery, and John Waddell. They and many others explained and interpreted
Ireland's ancient past in the places where history actually happened,
generously sharing with the authors their knowledge and love of Ireland.
Their scholarship and insights appear frequently in these pages.

Many times in the past 5000 years this small island has stood at the
heart of European culture. In the middle of the eighth century B.C. it may
have been the wealthiest place in Europe, its gold ornaments and beautiful
bronze musical instruments unequalled anywhere north of Egypt. Because
Ireland was never absorbed into the Roman Empire, it retained into the
second millennium A.D. unique cultural traditions stretching back perhaps
to the Bronze Age, if not earlier. When Christianity arrived in the fifth
century A.D., a strong spiritual presence was already on the island. Yet
there was no conflict between the newly arrived religion and the pagan
past, instead there was an extraordinary convergence of the two which
developed into a unique Christian church whose influence would eventually
spread throughout Europe. After the fall of Rome, Ireland kept scholarship
alive for Europe and ultimately carried civilization back to the new
barbarian kingdoms rising among the ruins. By the tenth century A.D.,
European kingdoms did not think themselves well served unless they had
Irish philosophers and theologians advising their courts.

Ireland has always been a place where myth and reality existed
side-by-side, but the latest research is now making clear the distinction
between them. This book is full of new information, some of it at odds with
what many Irish descendants believe about their ancestral home.
Interestingly, most of what we think of as Irish is rooted in the
nineteenth century. It was then that Ireland began reinventing itself as a
nation and culture separate from the "occupying English." Poets
and writers of the Celtic Revival reached back to old Irish legends and
stories to provide a cultural foundation for their newly emerging national
identity. The term "Celtic" was little used prior to this time,
so Ireland's view of itself as a Celtic nation is a modern invention. But
this reaching back into an ancient past has always been at the heart of the
Irish character. Past and present, myth and reality are inexorably mixed.
Nothing is forgotten, and the past continues to color the present. Stories
sometimes take on a life of their own. When Irish rebels rose up on Easter
Monday of 1916 to proclaim a republic, they invoked the name and spirit of
Cú Chulainn, Ireland's mythological hero who stood single-handed against
the armies of Queen Mebd of Connaught when she invaded the province of
Ulster. This is the central story of The Táin, Ireland's greatest literary
epic and one of many pre-Christian stories that have defined Ireland's view
of itself and its people.

Are the stories a memory of a half-forgotten past committed to writing
centuries later, or are they just invention? The further back in time we
go, the less certain we are of answers. Ireland's ancient past is still
full of many mysteries (like how Ireland developed a Celtic culture and
language when there is little archaeological evidence of any Celts in
Ireland). But because of a cascade of new archaeological discoveries and
new techniques for interpreting them, the truth about this past is coming
into sharper focus. Ancient history is most often concerned with the great
empires of the world. Much more has been written about the Greeks, the
Romans, the Egyptians, or the Chinese, to name just a few. But the vast
majority of our ancestors never lived in great empires. Whether in Europe,
Africa, Asia, or the Americas, they lived in tribal warrior cultures
like those of Bronze and Iron Age Ireland. So this book is not only a
history of a people who have had a tremendous impact on the world for many
thousands of years, it is also a glimpse into the way most people lived for
much of human history. Above all, however, it is a search for the roots of a people now called Irish.

Boyne Valley Tours

Private Tour with pick up and return to your accommodation.
Newgrange World Heritage site, the 10th century High Crosses at Monasterboice,
Hill of Tara the seat of the High Kings, Bective Abbey and Trim Castle
the largest Norman castle in Ireland
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